There are two of me. The me of now, and the me of hindsight. Hindsight me is way smarter, and able to criticise every decision we made leading us into the mess that is now. Now me needs to make quick decisions based on imperfect information, budgets and tight timelines.
If it were up to hindsight me, we'd have carefully designed and orchestrated every past decision. We'd do full design qualification and change control on projects and purchases, researching carefully to never make a mistake. We'd sit as a team and brainstorm every possible implication. We'd write, execute and document tests for everything to prove ourselves. Any sniff of inefficiency and we would stop everything and fix it, no matter the cost. We'd take time to document, investigate and follow through. It would be a glorious cavalcade of plans and CAPAs, qualifications and tests. And reports! Binders and binders of wonderful validation reports everywhere!
If it were entirely up to hindsight me, we'd run our little widget company like we're building a space shuttle. Of course, we'd never make any money. But we'd be doing it right, by gum!
Most companies need to be somewhere in the middle. No hindsight and you end up a tangled mess of short-sighted kludges, all hindsight and you can't move forward. Either way you risk ending up a lead balloon.
If you find yourself in the kludge company territory, then here's some advice from a talk I recently attended[1]:
Start by training yourself and your team in Root Cause Analysis. Empower them to start thinking deeply and critically about what's really causing the problems and inefficiencies you encounter. Understanding root causes naturally translate into solutions that aren't just bandaids. Use these skills in your day to day, and you'll start building a culture of quality around your systems.
If it were up to hindsight me, we'd have carefully designed and orchestrated every past decision. We'd do full design qualification and change control on projects and purchases, researching carefully to never make a mistake. We'd sit as a team and brainstorm every possible implication. We'd write, execute and document tests for everything to prove ourselves. Any sniff of inefficiency and we would stop everything and fix it, no matter the cost. We'd take time to document, investigate and follow through. It would be a glorious cavalcade of plans and CAPAs, qualifications and tests. And reports! Binders and binders of wonderful validation reports everywhere!
If it were entirely up to hindsight me, we'd run our little widget company like we're building a space shuttle. Of course, we'd never make any money. But we'd be doing it right, by gum!
Most companies need to be somewhere in the middle. No hindsight and you end up a tangled mess of short-sighted kludges, all hindsight and you can't move forward. Either way you risk ending up a lead balloon.
If you find yourself in the kludge company territory, then here's some advice from a talk I recently attended[1]:
Start by training yourself and your team in Root Cause Analysis. Empower them to start thinking deeply and critically about what's really causing the problems and inefficiencies you encounter. Understanding root causes naturally translate into solutions that aren't just bandaids. Use these skills in your day to day, and you'll start building a culture of quality around your systems.
[1] Steve Gompertz